WikiLeaks Hacks Haunt Hillary Clinton and DNC

While Trump’s sexual antics win media attention, Clinton and her political shenanigans are being overlooked.

When WikiLeaks — a media organization founded by Julian Assange dedicated to analyzing and publishing censored and restricted material in the interest of the public good –released private e-mail documents exchanged by high-ranking public officials within the Democratic Party, the implication of deep corruption and favoritism in electoral politics was as obvious as it was disturbing.

The fallout has been devastating. Establishment favorite, former Secretary of State and current Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton — looking to make history as the first (white) woman president of the so-called “free world” — found herself square in the middle of the deluge. Judging by the content of the leaks, the motivating forces behind everything WikiLeaks revealed were a covert, collective effort to protect Clinton’s assumption of executive power — epitomized by the intentional sabotage of Bernie Sanders’s campaign during the primary race — as well as coaching Democrats in state competitions on the fine art of pandering to Black Lives Matter.

In a previous article, I discussed how the DNC e-mails cast a heavy shadow over Hillary Clinton’s nomination, one she would be unable to recover from. The three most recent WikiLeaks revelations — published from the e-mails hacked from the account of Clinton’s presidential campaign chair, John Podesta — add more wood to the scorching fire.

The first email concerns the transcripts of speeches Clinton delivered to Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street executives. Clinton earned an estimated $1.8 million from the eight speeches she gave to audiences of financial firms and big banks. As previously reported in Wear Your Voice, people who attended these speeches viewed them as occasions in which she delivered “rah-rah” remarks to a room of friends.

“The material of the speeches Clinton gave to Wall Street paints her as an ally of the financial world — not the fierce opponent she claims to be,” we reported. The new emails seem to reinforce this opinion of a politician who is friendly with the very lords and masters of American financial system she has vowed to be tough on if elected.

The second set of emails calls into question Clinton’s environmentalist bona fides. According to the hacks, on September 2015, Clinton told an audience during a speech to the Building Trades Union that anyone criticizing fracking or new petroleum pipelines, including the Keystone XL, should “get a life.”

The third set of emails suggests how Clinton operatives tapped into the legacy of black tokenism to pursue black voters.

Most of us who are somewhere on the left of the American political spectrum already believe that both mainstream political parties are nothing more than empty shells of democracy, the hired muscle of plutocrats and corporate tycoons. These leaks are more confirmation than affirmation of this reality.

However, Donald Trump’s misogynistic and xenophobic antics and overall despicable character has put practically the whole country on red alert, overshadowing Clinton’s extremely troubling political record. Understandable, if not disconcerting.

Naturally, Clinton supporters have seized the moment, taking every available opportunity to highlight what a sensible and safe choice Clinton is compared to her outrageous and out-of-control Republican opponent, painting her as the antidote to his sharp right turn. They even blame the former reality-TV show host and billionaire real estate mogul for the leaks themselves, and have gone so far as to draw a parallel between the WikiLeaks hack and Watergate. Restless nights await us, Clinton backers argue, if Trump wins the White House.

However, as Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein told a CNN audience, contrary to popular belief, come November 8th, none of us should expect to sleep any sounder if and when Hillary Clinton takes the oath of office.

Antwan is an educator, cultural critic, actor, and writer for Wear Your Voice Mag (WYV), where he focuses on the dynamics of class, race, gender, politics, and pop culture. Prior to joining the team at WYV, he was an adjunct professor in the African American Studies Department at Valdosta State University in southern Georgia, where he taught African American Literature. He has traveled the U.S. and U.K. showcasing a fifty-five minute, one-person play titled Whitewash, which focuses on the state of black men in the post-civil rights era. Antwan received his B.A. in English and Literature from California State University, Dominguez Hills, and M.A. in African American Studies from University of California, Los Angeles. He is a Ronald E. McNair Scholar and NAACP theater nominee.